Jesus died for me

The just penalty for our sin, the wrong things every one of us have done, is spiritual death; separation from God. In the old testament times, God allowed animals to be sacrificed for the people's sin and would accept the shed blood as a substitute for the people's own life. But ever since man had first sinned, God had planned a permanent solution. The ultimate sacrifice that could pay the punishment for everyone's sin and see justice done.

The plan was this, to send his own son, Jesus who was himself God, to be born as a human baby and live on this earth leading a perfect, sinless life, and when He had done this, to voluntarily offer His own life as a sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sin. Not just death but separation from God, the only time Jesus had ever been completely separated from His father.
This was prophesied hundreds of years before Jesus' birth by Isaiah in ch53v6 "We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost. We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And GOD has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong, on him, on him".

And this is what He did. The fact that Jesus lived and walked on this earth is historically undeniable. There is more evidence of the existence of Jesus than there is of Julius Caesar. He was born in Bethlehem, grew up as a carpenter, lived a perfect life never sinning once. He loved & healed people, taught them about God and was then falsely accused and crucified by the Romans outside of Jerusalem. He did all this willingly because He loved you so much that He wanted to save you from the judgement you deserve. Hebrews 12v2 says "...for the joy set before Him [Jesus] endured the cross, scorning its shame...". Then Jesus came back to life again after 3 days in 'hell' since death could not hold the son of God.

This wonderful plan is summed up in one of the most well know Bible verses, John 3v16-18. "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, His one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending His Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in Him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust Him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person's failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to Him" (The Message).

You might think that's the end of the matter but there's one more, all-important point that makes the difference between life & death.